'Fornicate the story' (The State of the Art - Iain M. Banks)

Member Name: themoomin

Product:	The State of the Art - Iain M. Banks
Date:	22/02/01 (145 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well-written

Disadvantages: See op

This collection of stories from Scottish writer Iain M. Banks was first published in 1991. It contains the novella of the title, as well as 7 other short stories ranging from horror to sci-fi.

This is the second book by Iain M. Banks (as opposed to Iain Banks) that I have read, the first was the novel Consider Phlebas. I enjoyed this to a point, but found a few of the stories a wee bit bland and/or pointless.

'The State of the Art' is the 7th story in the collection, a mini-novel in fact, and was the one I enjoyed the most. Like 'Consider Phlebas', it deals with Banks' sci-fi world of the Culture, and focuses on a Culture ship as it hovers over our own earth in our 1977, studying and learning all it can about our planet. For what purpose? To make first contact, or to destroy the entire planet to stop it from destroying itself? You'll have to read it and see . . .
It is written with true attention to detail, with Banks describing West Berlin, New York and Paris as if through the eyes of an alien. There is humour here too - as the aliens become more familiar with earth and its habits one of them dresses up like Captain Kirk from Star Trek. Later on a feast is prepared on board ship, consisting of the human flesh of General Pinochet, Idi Amin and Richard Nixon. Earth food indeed.
This is a good introduction to Culture lore, especially for someone like me who was just curious about the 'other side' of Mr Banks. The characters are well-described and easy to identify with, and believable, which is important. Well worth a read.

However, the other stories in the book did not impress me as much. They were obviously all written at different times in Banks' career, and first published separately. A brief description of each follows:

The first story, 'Road of Skulls', is very short, and tells of two companions on a journey on that famous road. To me, although well-written and thought-out
, there does not seem to be a point to this tale, nor a satisfactory conclusion, but I'm prepared to be convinced if anyone understands it!
Next comes another Culture based tale 'A gift from the Culture'. This makes more sense, and has a discernible beginning, middle and end, as well as a comprehensible plot. An ex-Culture agent is given a mission, gangster-style, to blow up the Admiral of the Fleet's Starship. The characters are easy to empathise with, and the plot is decent.
No 3, entitled 'Odd Attachment' is just that - odd. It tells of unrequited love from the point of a tree- obviously not of this earth - who ends up playing 'She loves me, she loves me not' with a mysterious alien whom the tree proceeds to pull all the bits off. Very strange, but again well-described and easily imaginable.
'Descendant' follows. A man is stranded on a planet with only his space-suit for company. Sci-fi again - well-written but confusing. I had to read this twice to make any real sense of it.
Then the fifth tale - 'Cleaning Up'. This is quite a humorous story - earth is being bombarded by strange items from outer space - gifts from the aliens? The way the earth people deal with this phenomenon is amusing and also a little frightening, and the final twist to the tale is very funny. In my mind, this is one of the better stories, as it is entirely believable.
No 6 is entitled simply 'Piece'. It is a first-person narrative of various events in his life, which includes a brief discussion of the merits of The Satanic Verses. If the ending means what I think it means, then Banks uses this story to put across his own feelings about fairly recent events. The ending brought me back to reality with a bump.
Finally, after the aforementioned 'State of the Art', comes 'Scratch'. This is written in a stream-of-consciousness style, and appears to make no sense whatsoever. Like parts of Banks&#
39; novel 'The Bridge', I don't think the reader is necessarily meant to know what this is all about. I found it extremely difficult to read properly, and had no urge to read it again.

So there you have it. Published by Orbit, and available in the UK for 6.99, this is not a book I feel I need to add to my own collection. But I'm glad I've read it, and I will probably endeavour with my journey into the sci-fi works of Iain M Banks.

Visit the orbit website at
www.orbitbooks.co.uk

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